The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 15, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

KIRKUS REVIEW

A mythically capable CIA operative leads a team of intrepid, off-the-books warriors in a battle to defuse a terrorist dead-set on the destruction of Honolulu.

Bond’s (The Enemy Within, 1996) army of readers, who expect the full armory of barely even invented, occasionally imaginary gadgets to be deployed at a breakneck pace, will be thoroughly satisfied with this first-in-a-series collaboration with the useful Jim DeFelice, who has helped out fellow technowarriors Stephen Coontz and Dale Brown. The threat to everything we hold dear is seldom-seen Samman Bin Saqr, a terrorist who makes bin Laden look like a piker. Bin Saqr has laid low for five years, all the while accumulating atomic waste from dirty corners of the old Soviet empire. His plan is to irradiate Honolulu and its hinterland so thoroughly that it will be uninhabitable for eons and the great Satan will be more humbled than ever. Fortunately for the great Satan, there is Bob Ferguson, a CIA operative who, even though he’s walking around with thyroid cancer, is capable of navigating the treacherous slopes and deserts of the Stans, firing any number of weapons from the hip, outfoxing Russian intelligence officers, sending scores of scurvy Chechnyans to their makers, and ordering off the menu in any number of obscure southwest Asian languages. Ferguson’s been on the case of the missing nuclear waste for some time, a hunt that keeps putting him in Chechnyan rebel territory, but he’s always got a way out of the jams he and “The Team,” his band of army and marine merrymakers, crash into. He may have met his match, however, in brilliant, 26-year-old presidential counselor Corinne Atkins, his new boss. Corinne has been ordered to take a close look at both The Team and The Threat, orders that jet her to the Chechnyan front, where Ferguson, who has no use for her, has followed Bin Saqr’s scent nearly to the abandoned Soviet air base where the poisonous 747 is ready to fly.

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